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Have you ever wondered what Bloggers do when they are not writing or taking photographs for their blogs? They either attend or organise a Meet Up in the town where they live or in the city nearest to them.

MeetUps are neighbours getting together to learn something, do something or share something. I attended one of these this past weekend and simply have to share this awesome experience with you.

who shared some valuable information with us regarding the use of photographs and what the Copyright law says about using photographs taken by others and downloaded from the internet. The extra special bonus was the Online Blog Photography course available free to all those who attended this MeetUp. Thank you so much Abigail for your generous gift.

Our Goodie Bags were packed with all sorts of wonderful goodies as usual. Our hostess never ceases to amaze and impress us all with what she ends up putting in our Goodie Bags. Let me tell you about some of the stuff I found in my bag . . .

This is an app available for all IOS and Android devices available through your App Playstore. This app for your mobile device gives you access to buy one get one free offers to the best restaurants, activities, attractions, spas and hotels across 40 destinations throughout the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Asia.

A beautifully scented Shimmy Shimmy Soap Bar. Apparently if you rub the bar directly on any area of the body in slow gentle strokes allowing the bar to slowly melt on the skin it will leave that part of your body with a shimmer to the skin. You can find out more about them here: Find more information here

Revlon Cosmetics –

Another sponsor who never fails to impress and surprise us. I received in my bag an Ultra HD Matte Lip Colour (Pink – which has a Strawberry flavour) and an Ultimate All-in-One Mascara (Blackest Black) which has 5 benefits all in one: Volume, Length, Definition, Lift and Intense Colour. Find them here

Oh So Heavenly –

Have you heard about their newly launched product range called Hair Scentsations? I’m looking forward to trying this sample of hair shampoo and conditioner I found in my Goodie Bag. Smells like mixed berries. Mmmmm . . . together with my lip colour from Revlon will make me smell good enough to eat. #LoveyourColour. http://www.ohsoheavenly.co.za

There was so much more in the Goodie Bag, I’ve decided to keep my post short by only focusing on these items here.

This event is definitely a must to attend. You cannot afford to miss the next one. I sure am looking forward to the next one myself.

To get on the mailing list for the next event, sign up to our mailer here: Sign up here:

The more you break out of your shell in life, the more people will be threatened by seeing you reach your true potential. I have decided to fight back and choose my identity once and for all, without stressing about other people’s opinions.

Defining myself and the way I define myself:

People tend to define us very narrowly. They do this because they want to stereotype us, based on our personality, the way we’ve been in the past, based on our career and it’s a shame because we are complex creatures as human beings. We have many passions and many things we are drawn to in life. We can have many potential skill sets, we can have many different lifetimes in one lifetime if we don’t fall into that trap of putting ourselves in the box that everybody else tries to put us into. We have to rage against that.

Trying something new. Every time I try to start something new there’s always that one person who will try to put me back in my box. They will say things like “no, you’re not allowed to do that, you said you were going to do X, so that is what you’re going to have to do.” “So now you’re going to do this?” “That’s not what you do.” If I continually shield one side of myself from the other then I’m never painting a full picture of myself.

I’ve been too narrowly defined up to now and need to break free from that definition. I need to see what I am capable of. Hey, I’ve lived this long, I’m going to live this much longer, what do I want to be different for the next few years of my life?

How do I want to explore what I am capable of that I haven’t been able to explore yet?

In what ways do I want to change, to evolve, to grow?

I need to look at my life right now – how I live day to day and track how I sabotage myself. There are a few things I could do to help me with this. For example:

Daily Diary:

How do I spend my day hour by hour?

Am I focussing on the right things in my life?

Being busy does not equal being productive. Keeping a daily diary is where I can get smart about “what” I spend my time doing. It’s also good to keep a food diary so you can see what is affecting your energy levels and your body in general.

Emotional Diary:

I need to look at the emotions I experience frequently and what triggers them. Thought processes and situations cause feelings, triggers for emotions. Once I have these I can really begin to understand the forces behind my emotions and will enable me to change them rapidly.

Notice Board:

Here is where I need to write down what I notice about my life, i.e. what I would like to change, the direction I am going in the long term, the people around me, the way my life is structured. This is essential in looking at what I want to change/progress I want to make in my life.

Life is too short, far too short to work without purpose; to coast in our relationships; to get stuck in a routine without ever asking myself the question of what I really want in life. Too many people are too busy, too few are fulfilled.

How often do you step away from your packed and stressful routine to look at the things you are doing and the direction you are taking?

Table Mountain, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa

I am the most incredible asset I will ever have.

My ability to take care of people will collapse if I don’t take care of “me” first.

We all have patterns of self-sabotage. We all have things internally that hold us back. We don’t have direction/drive/core confidence, we are always stressed, don’t have time, find ways to feel guilty etc. that stop us from moving forward.

All we need is to make tiny changes internally to make huge external changes in our lives and in our happiness. There are five stumbling blocks/five key issues we face.

Direction: A person who lacks direction doesn’t know where they are going in life or know where they want to go but don’t know how to get there, so they feel lost.

Environment: The person knows where they want to go but don’t have a strategy for getting there, they don’t have a roadmap. These are the people who are always talking about this “thing” they want in life but don’t know how they’re going to get it i.e. they don’t have a plan.

Drive: This person knows their destination, they have a road map for getting but they don’t have any drive, or at least not sustainable drive – the kind of drive where they wake up every morning with the same level of empowerment that says “I’m ready for today.” You can’t go to bed late enough and can’t get up early enough because you are just so excited about life. The way you feel on the most productive day – the day when you feel like you can conquer the world. We have formulas for getting to a certain level of drive or any emotion – there’s a formula for feeling ambitious, happy, excited, energetic – there’s a formula for getting there but there’s also a formula for feeling the opposite i.e. unhappy, lazy, feeling like you don’t want to do anything, feeling depressed. These formulas happen on an unconscious level so we get there by mistake but we can even get there on purpose because we have programmed ourselves that way.

People/time/energy/skills (qualifications/talent): Some people have all of these but they don’t have the resources. Maybe it’s money right now? “I can’t do what I need to do because I don’t have the money.” Maybe it’s time? “I don’t have the time to do it, I’m just so busy, I’m so stressed all the time, I can barely find an hour at the end of the day to have a shower, let alone go pursue my dream.” Or maybe you think you don’t know the right people. You can learn how to access the right people. You can learn how to access the right people who can direct you to where you need to go or where you need to be.

Self-worth and confidence (core confidence): You can have all of the above but without core confidence (feeling invincible from the inside), all the above will be rather useless to you. Having self-worth and core confidence is the part that says “you’re worth it/you deserve it/you’re good enough for this.

Unless point number 5 falls into place no aspect of our life will “click” in the way that you want it to because the key to life is believing on some level that I am worthy of everything the other person has, that there is no difference between me and this other person. I deserve the exact same thing any other person has.

When you believe that, that’s when everything real changes. Without that, you could have all the resources, all the time, all the money etc and none of it will make any difference.